As conflicts threaten undersea cables, India looks to retrofit naval vessels to protect assets

As countries weaponise undersea utility pipelines and internet cables in modern geopolitical conflicts, India is mulling a new approach to build capabilities to repair cable cuts and damages.  

The CapTable reported earlier that the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) has been working closely with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for a couple of years on setting up indigenous vessels for laying and repairing undersea optical fibre cables, as the country solely depends on two international consortia for this matter. A confidential study carried out by one of the public sector enterprises (TCIL) under DoT had proposed a budget requirement of roughly Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 4,000 crore for procuring indigenous vessels and establishing interim maintenance facilities.

The telecom department is yet to take a call on the proposal.

Meanwhile, the government has formed a joint committee on the issue, with representatives from the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Indian Navy, NSCS, and the DoT. One of the options under consideration is using a couple of Naval ships and retrofitting them into cable laying and repair vessels, The CapTable has learnt.  

It takes three to four years to build a large cable repair ship, and it's not cheap. “Thus, the government is exploring reasonable options,” a person aware of the development said. 

The cable repair vessel project is listed on e-Samiksha, an online portal used by the Prime Minister’s Office to review the development of critical policy matters and actions.

In 2022, the Indian Navy launched two diving support vessels, which can go into the deep sea to rescue submarines. These vessels can be retrofitted for cable repair, an article published by Observer Research Foundation (ORF) said in June.      

Multilateral organisations such as QUAD (Australia, the US, Japan, and India) expect India to play a greater role in undersea cable security in the Indo-Pacific. Multiple think-tanks based in partner countries are advocating for India to invest in this area.

This is significant as almost all of the internet traffic flows through the undersea cables. “For India, the value of its services exports in 2023-24 stood at $341.11 billion, with the vast majority of it using undersea cables as a conduit for delivery,” Rear Admiral (retired) Monty Khanna wrote in the ORF column. All SWIFT international payment transactions depend on the undersea cable network. Globally, there are 150-200 incidents of undersea cable cuts.

A majority of the undersea cable cuts—about 98-99%—are caused by natural phenomena, and by ships recklessly or otherwise dragging their anchors on the seabed.

While the damages in shallow waters could be purely unintentional, by either fishing activity or by ships dragging anchors, the cuts in deep sea raise suspicion.

A terrestrial cable cut can impact a handful, hundreds, or thousands of households. An undersea cable cut means an internet blackout for a majority of the population of a country or region (the 2008 virtual India internet blackout being an example).

What makes things more complex is the fact that most submarine cables to and from India either go through the Malacca Strait or Suez Canal. Virtually, these are chokepoints.

What has alarmed India’s security establishment is that Beijing now possesses an advanced submarine cable cutter capable of reaching depths of up to 7,000 metres, with the ability to damage steel-armoured cables laid in the deep sea. “We know of situations wherein Jiaolong (the Chinese submersible vessel) has gone down in areas where our undersea cables are going in the Arabian Sea,” a former Indian Navy official told The CapTable last month. 

There have been multiple incidents wherein hostile countries have targeted the undersea infrastructure to harm adversaries. 

Last year, cables connecting Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Germany were severed by a ship dragging its anchor, reportedly raising suspicions about shadow fleets backed by China and Russia. There have been similar happenings in East Asia. Vietnam has seen a spike in cases of cable cuts in the last three years. Recently, Taiwan arrested Chinese sailors who were found responsible for dragging the ship anchor across the seabed, cutting the optical fibre cables.

Although the proposal for retrofitting Navy vessels is still under discussion, the timelines aren’t clear. Compared to procuring and building a large ship is a long-drawn process. The retrofitting of naval ships could be the quickest way for India to develop the interim cable maintenance capabilities.